The Cabal (#16 - The Craig Crime Series)

by Catriona King

  A moment’s sojourn by the bar was ended by a quick scan of the space and a nod, then the detective lifted his pint and moved soundlessly to a back table, where the expensively suited man who was waiting for him sat with his back to the room. Spence was slightly surprised; not by his guest’s stance but by his outfit; he’d only ever seen Trevor Rudkin wearing jeans before. Rudkin’s stylish suit was a marker of his recently elevated status as special advisor and his new and very useful proximity to power; it was also a reminder of the genius that had made the Intelligence Officer spot the civil servant’s potential years before when Rudkin was a lowly admin officer and recruit him as his snout.

  The D.I. pulled up a stool and sat opposite his floppy-haired informant. Nothing was said for a moment, both men sipping their drinks in the tense, silent romance of a detective and his source. Occasionally Spence would snatch a glance at the man facing him, taking in first Rudkin’s hands, both visible and unarmed, and then his expression, a man with something to impart but something that was making him afraid. Good. Informants were only useful when they were nervous, the rest of the time he just wanted them to fade back into their mire.

  Halfway down his pint the ex-spy broke the silence.

  “You’ve got something for me.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Spill.”

  Trevor Rudkin shook his head. “I need a guarantee first.”

  “Of what? You’ll get paid, don’t worry about that.”

  Rudkin’s face contorted angrily, taking the detective aback. Weak, faux-liberal and gruesomely ambitious had been Spence’s assessment of the civil servant, but aggressive hadn’t been anywhere on the list. Rudkin spat out his next words.

  “Fuck your money! You couldn’t pay me what this is worth. I want my back watched until you’ve locked them all up.”

  Spence leant forward, his interest piqued. “All who? I need names.”

  “Guarantee my safety first.”

  The D.I. narrowed his eyes in disbelief. Who did the man think he was? The bloody FBI? Organising witness protection was a near impossible task on an island as small as this one, but after a qualm of conscience that died in its infancy Spence nodded the lie that said he could.

  Appeased, Rudkin started to spill.

  “I’ve only got one name, but I’m on the road to getting more.”

  “Who’s the one?”

  The informant glanced around the room, for what Spence had no idea. The nearest table was twenty feet away and a directional mike would have stood out like a nudist in a church.

  Rudkin dropped his quiet voice even further. “Joshua Loughrey. He’s the IBP’s member in the European Parliament.”

  An MEP. Spence knew that it meant something more than the obvious, but what he didn’t have a clue.

  “What about him?”

  “He was involved in the hit on McManus.”

  As Spence felt the familiar dart of excitement that made his life worthwhile, Rudkin sat back and folded both arms across his Armani.

  “I don’t know anything else.”

  The ex-spook wasn’t having it, he needed as much information as possible right now. Not to solve the case or for brownie points from Craig, he didn’t give a monkey’s about either of those, but for his own, almost pathological his father had said, need to be the smartest kid in the room. His next question emerged in a hiss.

  “Involved how? You can’t just say that and not elaborate. Was Loughrey there?”

  Damn. As soon as the words were out Spence knew he’d given something away.

  Rudkin frowned. “I’d heard it was a lone gunman on a roof.”

  The D.I. back-pedalled swiftly. “It was. I meant was Loughrey in on the planning? Is that what you mean by involved?”

  The confusion in the civil servant’s eyes said that he might just have got away with his gaff. After a moment Rudkin unfolded his arms and leaned forward again.

  “Not the logistics of it, but definitely the decision. That was what I heard anyway. I’ll know more in a few days. I’m accompanying him to Brussels for a trade meeting tomorrow, until Thursday night.”

  Long enough for Spence to do some digging around.

  “I want details of your itinerary.”

  A tightening of the advisor’s lips said no. He didn’t want Spence asking the Belgian plods to follow them around.

  “OK, then, a blow by blow of what happens over there as it does.”

  A shake of the head indicated that the detective would have to wait.

  “When I get back. I can’t take the risk of being caught on the phone to you. I’m on trial. It’s my first big trip with him.”

  Spence nodded; it was fair enough. He had a lead that he could run with now, so he would get on with that. He decided to change tack.

  “Tell me what you know about Veronica Lewis.”

  The immediate upward flash of the civil-servant’s eyebrows said any denial that he knew the madam would be a lie. Rudkin realised instantly that he’d blown it so he tried for obfuscation, answering the question in a vague tone.

  “I may have heard the name somewhere. Who is she?”

  “Don’t kid a kidder, Trevor. You know her all right. How?”

  A heavy sigh signalled the advisor’s surrender.

  “She hosted a party that senior IBP members attended a few months back.”

  The D.I. didn’t attempt to conceal his sneer. “Kid’s birthday party?”

  Rudkin snorted, sending a fountain of white wine down his silk tie. He dabbed furiously at it as he spoke.

  “Only if the kids were grown men wearing nappies.”

  Spence nodded slowly. “Ah… that sort of party.” He asked another question that he already knew the answer to. “Was it the first or just the most recent party?”

  The government servant called his bluff. “You obviously already know the answer to that.”

  “OK, then. Here’s another. Where are they held?”

  Rudkin shrugged. “Beats me. I’ve been too low down the food chain to get invited until now -”

  The detective cut him off. “Until now?”

  The smug expression that appeared on Rudkin’s face nearly made him puke.

  “Loughrey said the Brussels trip would just be the first of my perks.”

  Spence smiled to himself. He could tolerate a bit of smugness if it gave him an inside man. Rudkin was still talking.

  “I do know that they’re mostly held in Ireland, both parts, but last year there were rumours of one being held near Bruges.”

  Kyle felt the dart again.

  “Same people, or would there have been more MEPs at that one, by any chance?”

  Rudkin joined in his smile. “There was at least one.”

  Spence drained his pint before asking his next question. “So, this party you’ve been invited to, when is it?”

  “I didn’t say…”

  The denial faded away as Rudkin conceded with a shrug. He’d never admitted to having a definite invitation, but Spence was clever, so there was no point withholding the date now.

  “This Saturday night. I don’t know where yet. I’ll let you know if or when I do.”

  The D.I. nodded, his pulse speeding up. He would be at that party as well, even if he had to hide in Rudkin’s car boot to get there. It would be the perfect opportunity to find out what was happening inside the IBP.

  As he rose to leave, his mind was racing with everything he’d just discovered. Joshua Loughrey had attended at least one of Veronica Lewis’ parties, and there’d been no love lost between him and the dead First Minister for some reason, despite both of them being in the IBP. Internal political strife, assassination plots and sex scandals; the week was beginning to look up.

  ****

  High Street Station. 10 p.m.

  Veronica Lewis’ pallor had subsided by the time they’d reached High Street, and it subsided further there, courtesy of her make-up bag. By the time she was judged fit for interview the madam w
as back in control, and Craig cursed the decency he’d been burdened with by his parents for not pushing her harder when she’d been more likely to break.

  Liam shook his head from side to side in an ‘I told you so’ and switched on the interview room recorder, while Jack Harris settled down in the viewing room with his tea. Craig cut straight to the chase.

  “Why did you react so strongly to the Earl’s plea for your safety, Mrs Lewis? So strongly that you felt the need to call your son and tell him that you were safe and not to speak to the press?”

  Veronica Lewis pursed her lips and said nothing so Craig moved forward in his seat.

  “Let me tell you what we know then. You were kidnapped from your office last Friday, held hooded and restrained somewhere for five days, and then driven from there in a car-boot to be dumped in Drumnaph Wood. But not before you were roughed up. Comments?”

  The answer was silence and a narrowing of her brown eyes.

  “OK. There’s more. You have a record for soliciting and prostitution, and as well as your apparently respectable design and beauty business you now run a lucrative side-line. Sex parties for wealthy and powerful men.”

  As her jaw dropped Craig raised a hand. “Please don’t bother to deny it. We’ve already spoken to two of your girls and we know one of the locations you use is the estate of that Earl of Louth, a former TD in the Dáil.”

  He leant further forward, closing the distance between them.

  “Personally, I don’t care if these men want to dress up as dogs and be taken for walkies every night of the week.”

  Liam stifled a grin as he continued.

  “But if that’s all it was, even if they do have famous faces, I very much doubt that you’d have been treated the way you were.” He sat back decisively. “So what else is going on, Mrs Lewis? Drug smuggling? Arms? Trafficking of girls?”

  They were the magic words. Suddenly Veronica Lewis disappeared and in her place sat Ronnie Lewis, a vulnerable but fiery sixteen-year-old, left to fend for herself in the world. She snarled at him, her lipsticked lips peeling back to reveal slightly protruding teeth.

  “Trafficking? My girls? No bloody way! Do you think I’d ever let those bastards touch underage girls? I’d knife them in the heart before I’d let them do something like that!”

  Craig seized on her outrage, lurching forward again. “Then help us. Tell us what they’re really up to. Tell us why they tried to silence you. And they must think that they’ve succeeded or you’d never have seen daylight again!”

  He watched the madam begin to form some words but then think better of it, pushing her chair back and folding her arms tight across her chest. As Lewis shook her dark head Liam thought he caught a look of sadness in her eyes.

  “I can’t.”

  “Then just tell us what it isn’t. If not girls, is it drugs?”

  “Some” was muttered beneath her breath but the way it was said made Craig think they weren’t talking about bulk.

  “Arms?” and “Antiques smuggling?” were greeted by blank stares that said that both were unlikely, or just as likely that she wasn’t privy to everything that went on.

  Liam asked the final question of the night. “What else might it be?”

  It brought a renewed tightening of her gaze, and Ronnie Lewis, the tough street-fighter, reappeared.

  “Nothing else I can tell you, boys. Sorry. And you can’t hold me. I’m the victim of an abduction, not under arrest.”

  They couldn’t argue with that, and if they’d been inclined to then Jack’s sharp rap on the window would have stopped them in their tracks. But as Veronica Lewis was escorted out to be driven home in a car, Craig wasn’t looking half as depressed as Liam’s head-in-hands pose suggested he should be.

  They decanted to the staff room where Jack had coffee already perking, so Craig filled three mugs before sitting down.

  “Well, we’ve learnt something anyway.”

  Liam snorted derisively. “What? That Lewis won’t tell us a bloody thing?”

  “But she did. Didn’t she, Jack?” Craig turned to see the sergeant nodding his head. “She didn’t deny that she was a madam, or running the parties, and she told us that whatever the reason was they wanted her silenced, it definitely wasn’t because they were trafficking girls.”

  Liam was unimpressed. “We knew all that already”

  “No. We didn’t know, we speculated. We also know now that there are drugs in play, possibly just for recreational use but we need to get the Drugs Squad on that to make sure. And if there are arms or antiques involved then they’re a very secondary thing-”

  Liam cut him off. “She didn’t say that, she just said nothing.”

  Craig shook his head. “There might be some smuggling happening and she mightn’t have been told about it, but if it was anything major she would have noticed something, and her reaction would have been hard to disguise. No. If there’s smuggling going on it’s very small beer. We also have the Earl’s estate confirmed by both Lewis and Jenny Morris now. Plus, it was definitely the sight of his name on that webpage that had shocked Lewis, as well as the idea that the press might know more. Which means something else, but I’m not sure what yet.”

  A frown appeared on Liam’s face. “I’ve a question. Why didn’t you ask her about political shenanigans? Like you mentioned at the briefing.”

  “It was a deliberate omission. I’m not sure that I trust Mrs Lewis not to barter information for her own safety, and until I’m sure of my thinking on that I don’t want her party guests alerted in any way.” He turned back to the desk sergeant. “So, OK, Jack. What does all that tell you?”

  The sergeant shoved Liam’s feet off a chair and sat down.

  “You’re right. Recreational drugs when they’ve never been raided, and legal, if kinky sex, wouldn’t force anyone to shut her up. It must be something more. She says there’s no trafficking and I believe her, but there could be some dealing and smuggling worth investigating, although my guess is they’d all be pretty low key.”

  Liam opened his mouth to say something but Jack sped up.

  “But there’s something really big being discussed at those parties, and Mrs Lewis has either overheard or been part of the talk.” He dunked a biscuit in his coffee and took a bite, speaking as he chewed. “So, what’s important enough to warrant kidnapping her, and why didn’t they finish the job? They need her alive for some reason, that’s why, so they put the fear of God into her and let her go.”

  Liam shrugged. “They need her ’cos she supplies the girls. No girls, no parties.”

  He was answered by a tut. “Ach, get away with you, Liam. Girls are easy to find.”

  “You didn’t say that when we were on the pull thirty years ago.”

  Craig smiled at the thought of a twenty-something Liam and Jack lining the walls of some dark club, trying to screw up the courage to speak to girls.

  “Jack’s right, Liam. There are plenty of brothels around, and if there aren’t any local that they fancy then this lot have enough money to fly girls in. Veronica Lewis wasn’t kept alive just for her girls.”

  The D.C.I. frowned. “Maybe she holds the contact list for the parties, then. And before you say it, yes, I know that could be collated again but it would take time. Or maybe they’re afraid she’ll release the names.”

  Craig nodded. Both good points. But Liam hadn’t finished.

  “Or…maybe whatever’s going on is time sensitive in some way, and that’s why Lewis can’t be replaced. They just don’t have the time. It would fit with the gun markings being removed.”

  He didn’t see Craig’s congratulatory push of the arm coming, and neither did his coffee-filled mug. The brown liquid splashed all over his legs and the floor, eliciting a groan.

  “Aw hell! What was that for? These trousers are only new!”

  Craig’s attempt at a contrite look lost out to his grin.

  “I’ll buy you a new pair for being a genius. Forget Lewis blackmailing them
with the names; unless she’d covered herself with a solicitor releasing her list if she was killed they wouldn’t have been afraid of that.” He thought again. “Although, let’s check that, Liam, just to be sure. But it’s your idea that something’s time sensitive that’s important. If you’re right, then working out what that schedule is should tell us exactly what it’s for.”

  ****

  The Demesne Estate. Midnight.

  Tommy Hill had always done his best work at night. Romantically; chasing girls at late night parties and seducing them in the dark. Dealing; drugs and arms, or whatever illegal commodity was in vogue that week. And terrorism; sneaking through Belfast’s poorly lit back streets in search of men to assault and kill, or boarding the last bus to gun them down. In fact, he’d been so well known for the preference in his youth that ‘Late Night Tommy’ had been his onetime moniker.

  Nowadays his nights were spent bouncing his granddaughter on his least arthritic knee, or settling down with a whisky to watch Game of Thrones. But every so often, when someone like the cops opened the door, he got the opportunity to remind himself and others of the man that he’d once been.

  Tonight was one such occasion, and as he clambered out of his bashed-up Vauxhall and sniffed the danger in the city air, the ex-paramilitary, if such a thing was even possible, felt testosterone surging through his body again. His age-shortened stride lengthened and his knock on the battered front door he’d approached was sharp, the shock on the face of the man who answered it saying that the old Loyalist’s reawakened virility wasn’t just in his own still-clear mind.